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Mobile Use? – Instant Satisfaction

Are your friends OBSESSED with GAMES on MOBILE phones? One of my friends sent me an invitation to play Candy Crush one day at 1:40 am in the morning…!! And, she is a full-time graduate student and she works like a super women from Monday to Thursday. I just can’t believe how she could play an App until that late!! For someone who doesn’t play games like me, this is totally beyond my imagination…!

So,I decided to look at myself and record how I used my phone through the whole last week:

Boring enough…in the last week, I didn’t play games, I didn’t watch mobile streams often and I didn’t book any flight/hotel for travel! All I did was to text my friends and read news. I usually don’t post on FaceBook or on other social media platforms because I don’t feel I need to (Maybe I’m social dinosaur??). Advertisers can make no money from me because they have almost no chance to get access to me. I use my phone basically for keeping contact with people with minimum needs in purchasing. The only ad I noticed was from Sportify because it’s in the middle of the music, I couldn’t skip it! But I’m glad it only took a few seconds.

I did a little bit research in mobile video watching. Although I fall into the 48% range of people who watch video on mobile reported by Google, I don’t think mobile stream has played an important role when I use my phone. Probably the study done by Experian Marketing Services matches more of my expectation about video watching, which says that nearly 91% of smartphone users don’t watch mobile video now! The reason for this may vary but for me, it’s simply because it takes forever to buffer a stream!

I think everything I need from my phone is instant satisfaction – If I want to talk you, I’ll text/call/msg you on Facebook/LinkedIn/WeChat NOW. If I see something unknown that interests me, I want to search it through my phone and gain the information I need NOW. If I see a beautiful scene then I need to take a picture of it and send to my friends NOW. This world spins very fast, fewer and fewer people are willing to wait for the response. If you don’t believe this, please try to go to the Chipotle at 42nd St at lunch time and take more than 3 seconds to decide what you want – you will immediately find the pressure from the steward! lol!!

But, I do find a fun thing that I did for the past week through my phone…

Last Sunday, my friend and I needed to meet up and she texted me:

“Where r u?”

Instead of texting her back, I sent a picture:

She replied:

“Lol!! Kk, stay there. I’ll meet you up in 15 mins.”

20 minutes later, we hugged each other in front of the fountain at Washington Square – I don’t need text to my friend. All I need is just to take a photo and she will know where I am. Since we have so many memories together in the past, we are friends who have team chemistry!

So, I think, a photo-based map pin is valuable for mobile phones. It saves people’s effort in typing tediously long address and it’s more interactive & fun. Remember, when we were born, the first thing we saw is pictures. They are straightforward, which don’t need extra efforts from our brain. Words on other hand, they are the products of abstract thinking and take certain cognitive energy to process. So photo map should definitely rock the direction function of smart phones!!